Soap Bubbles and Symmetry
by Astarity
Summary: When Harry steps into Grimmauld Place at the beginning of his fifth year, the ancestral home awakens something in him that will not allow him to leave things as they are, and chaos ensures. Maybe it's even the power he knows not. OCD!Harry
1. Harry the Housewife

_Hey all, I've come out of the depths to share this little piece with you. I do not own anything._

 _Summary: When Harry steps into Grimmauld Place over the at the beginning of his fifth year, the ancestral home awakens something in him that will not allow him to leave things as they are, and changes several events irrecoverably. Maybe even the power He knows not. OCD!Harry_

* * *

Initially, when Harry Potter stepped into the Ancestral Home of the Blacks, he thought little of the dark shadows, cobwebs, and all around unsanitary dirtiness of the house. It did not bother him when dear old Walburga Black opened up her gaping maw and screeched about the disgusting half-blood that dare tread where the superior feet of purebloods had once tread.

It was none of those rather unsavory things that made Harry Potter pull up short and simply stare towards the dirty object of his ire. The expression on Harry's face was not one that any who knew him would be surprised to see on his face. It happened when Harry was forced to eat asparagus, when Ron chewed too loudly in his ear, and when Hermione took his things without asking.

It was the "You Dare to Exist in My Space" look.

It was a look commonly put into use by Petunia Dursley, if anyone was interested in that fact. Not that anyone in the house knew the origins of that look. His friends simply knew that if Harry turned that look to you, you would receive a scolding on par with Hermione's homework spiels.

There were many things that Harry was attuned to in his many years under the _loving care_ of his relatives. The first of these things was an impulsive need to get rid of clutter.

The terrifying days when Ron left out his snack wrappers, left his clothes over his trunk haphazardly or Merlin forbid it- _his Chocolate Frog collection laying about_ , he was sure to either have all of his snacks mysteriously vanish, his clothes smelling of Lavender, or his Chocolate Frogs held hostage. Harry was a relentless and ruthless foe when it came to leaving things where they obviously did not belong. Dust bunnies huddled together in corners, clothes began to fold themselves, and Ron learned that his collection should stay firmly out of Harry's sight.

The twins once made the mistake of leaving their dorm room door open, and Harry wandered in with a Charms question on the tip of his tongue. Fred and George were the only ones witness to what happened that day, and every day since then they presented themselves and their room to Harry at least once a week for inspection. Harry was pleased with their progress, perhaps he would even start allowing them to use their abandoned classroom for experiments next year.

Not all of Gryffindor house fell under Harry's scrutinizing eyes, but all knew that anyone the twins held in such respect also demanded their complete subservience in all areas.

House elves did not even need to clean the Gryffindor common room anymore.

* * *

When the twins, Ron, and Hermione were told that Harry was coming to the dilapidated house there was suddenly a heavy tension in the air.

"We **need** to warn him." Hermione hissed through her teeth at Ron, who nodded and absently rearranged his Chocolate Frogs into a neat pyramid. She was situated on the now clean rug of Ron's room, which had been scrubbed with frantic hands for hours over the past two days. It was another three days until the plan to retrieve Harry would be put into place. The house still would not be left standing in Harry's wake.

"'Mione, you know that they'll never believe that Harry is going to rip the house apart. Besides, Dumbledore said-"

"I don't care what Dumbledore says!" Hermione shrieked, finally over her limit of acceptance of authority. After all, she was staring in the face of an oncoming storm. Harry would never forgive her for allowing the house to be in this state when he arrived.

"Remember when he caught the fungus that Neville was growing under his bed?! He didn't speak to poor Neville until his fungus was removed from the room and Neville brought him a basket of treacle tart!" Ron paled- there was a lot more than fungus growing in the corners of this house.

"Bloody hell we need to tell him." Hermione got up and began pacing, not even scolding Ron on his language. Time was of the essence in this situation.

She paced for several minutes, and Ron straightened his unopened school books on his temporary desk. Hermione stopped for a moment, eyes widening as she looked at Ron's pile of dirty clothing in the corner.

"We can't send a letter, Dumbledore would know. But we know someone with a way around Dumbledore…" Hermione chewed on her lip, something Harry couldn't scold her for yet.

"We do?" Ron stacked his quills in his quill box by color.

"Dobby!" Hermione cried in triumph, eyes gleaming.

A pop followed her call, and a small, spindly house elf with socks hanging off his ears stood in the room, beaming up at Hermione.

"Miss Grangy be calling for Dobby?"

Hermione nodded, smiling down at the little creature.

"Could we ask you a favor, Dobby?" The house elf looked around the dimly lit room briefly, then nodded enthusiastically.

"Anything for friends of Great Wizard Harry Potter!"

"It actually has to do with Harry, Dobby. We need you to bring him a message tonight. He needs to know what he's coming into…"

* * *

That evening, around 11 o'clock, a figure appeared in the middle of the second bedroom of Dudley Dursley. It was small, with abnormally long fingers and bulbous eyes. The room the creature had appeared in was bathed in moonlight, revealing the spotless wooden floors, the perfectly organized recipe books on the gleaming desk, and the neatly folded clothes made for a baby elephant stacked upright on a lopsided chair.

A body that was certainly not a baby elephant was lying on the sagging mattress pushed to the side of the room. It sat up and looked at Dobby, who walked over to the bed and looked up into the eyes of his beloved Harry Potter.

"Mister Harry Potter is being asked to get a message from his Wheezy and his Grangy." He beamed up at the black-haired wizard.

That got Harry's attention. He had been stewing on the fact that none of his friends had been in contact with him this summer. He had been going on more cleaning spells than usual to distract himself from this fact.

He smiled at his friend, his connection to his other friends.

"What is the message, Dobby?"

"Harry Potter sir will be going to his dogfather's house! Wheezy and Grangy will be there too! Miss Grangy says to warn Harry Potter that the house is not "to Harry Potter's Standards of Living"." Harry did not know where Dobby had picked up making quotation marks but he appreciated it nonetheless. He leaned back against the wall behind his bed and was silent for several seconds.

"Thank you, Dobby. I might ask for your help when I go in a couple days. I will not let things stay in the state they're in, if 'Mione was worried enough to send you. By the way, why haven't they sent anything with you before?"

Dobby rocked back on his heels for a second, before relenting and speaking. Miss Grangy hadn't said he couldn't tell Master Harry Potter…

"Mister Dumbles said that you had to be lonesome this summer, and that Master Potter's owl wasn't safe."

Harry's eyes narrowed minutely, before he shook his head and stood. He patted Dobby on the head and thanked him for the message, giving his regards to Hermione and Ron before sending him off, the elf beaming like it was Christmas the entire time.

Harry had some plotting to get done. Dumbledore obviously did not have his best interests at heart if Hermione could think of a safer way than to get into contact with the recently traumatized teen than he could. Or he had thought of it and decided that Harry should be alone with his nightmares all summer. He was coming for Dumbledore's office next.

* * *

Days later, Harry stood in the entryway to what must have been the biggest nightmare his aunt could cook up for him. The walls were streaked with grime, gruesome wallpaper depicted decapitation and the ugliest umbrella stand he had ever seen took up a corner, draped elegantly with spiderwebs and some sort of moss growing on its…toenail?

"What is this place?" Nobody took note of the dangerous tone creeping into his voice. They assumed he was simply mildly concerned by the grime of the house, rather than two steps from an explosion, as he truly was. From upstairs, Harry could hear several low "meep"s and he instantly went up to the second landing, which if possible, was worse than the foyer.

"Harry!", came several yells, although none of the five teenagers emerged out of their recently cleaned hiding place to hug him. He didn't mind, he did not want to touch anything in this house either, person or otherwise.

"Your warning wasn't enough." Harry said, eyes gleaming as they took in the decapitated elf heads adorning the wall symmetrically. At least they were symmetrical, but that wasn't going to stop him from throwing them in the rubbish bins and burning the bins for good measure. They matched the wallpaper downstairs as well, at least the person living here knew how to coordinate. Speaking of which…

"Where are we?"

"Oh! No one told you! This is the headquarters of the Order of the Pheonix, Harry. It's an organization founded by Dumbledore to combat You-Know-Who in the First War." Hermione had stood from the littler alcove that she was smooshed into with four redheads. Hesitantly, she walked closer to Harry and gave him a look-over.

He had grown to a respectable height this summer, although how that was possible with the Dursleys as caretakers was a mystery to her. His hair had gotten even longer, although the shagginess had been offset by the length and curled lightly near his collarbones. She rather liked it now, and told him so.

"Thank you, Hermione, I haven't really had the mind to cut it." Her heart sank when Harry said that. They had only contacted him when they needed to warn him of what he was walking into. But other than that, they had left him to his own despair of the events preceding the summer. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her closest friend, murmuring apologies incessantly. The Weasley children also emerged from the alcove to see Harry gently push Hermione away from him and smile.

"Don't worry, you contacted me eventually. And Dobby told me why, so I know who did it. The headmaster is not going to enjoy his visits to this house."

The twins exchanged a look. Dumbledore had awoken a dangerous sleeping dragon with his actions this summer, and they would bear witness to the famous Potter temper in a purely Slytherin execution.

 _Harry's on the warpath._ Fred thought as he saw the smile Harry was giving Hermione turn to a sharp smile edged with dark promises.

* * *

 _Past_

The last time Harry had been angered enough to turn to a cold revenge, he had taken it out on Seamus Finnegan. Seamus had had the nerve to go through Harry's things and leave them in disarray following his ill-rationalized venture.

Harry had walked in while he was doing this and had not interrupted Seamus' nosy wanderings. Instead, he had waited until Seamus had clumsily put everything back before clearing his throat.

"Harry!" Seamus yelped, as he realized the object of his scrutiny was in the room while he rifled through his things. Harry just narrowed his bright green eyes and left the room without answering. It was not until Seamus fell into the same trick stair three times, had couches move out from underneath him, and doors slam themselves into his face that he realized the entire castle was out to get him. It took another two weeks for him to become utterly miserable and figure out that it was Harry who had instigated the whole thing.

Seamus finally gathered the courage to talk to Harry during dinner, sliding a plate of treacle tart across the table from the seat he had grabbed early just for this reason. Harry locked eyes with Seamus, even as he pulled the plate towards him.

"I won't do it again Harry, I promise. I don't know what I was thinking, I was panicking about the essay due." He had in fact been looking for Harry's essay, and not finding it was simply rifling through his extremely private dormmate's things.

Harry looked at him for several heartbeats, before nodding.

"I'll tell the castle to stop." He did not elaborate, but suddenly Seamus noticed that the walls had seemed much closer seconds ago, and his bench was suddenly much more comfortable than before. Even the plates seemed to gleam more brightly. Seamus gulped as he realized that Harry had the entire castle keeping tabs on him from that time. _Bloody terrifying_ , he thought as Harry happily stroked the shiny bench beside him and bite into the tart.

* * *

 _Present_

Everyone in Gryffindor gained a respect for the quiet Boy-Who-Lived that day. If suddenly the pillows were always fluffed and the beds always made before the house elves could get to them, it was never mentioned.

It was terrifying the control Harry Potter had over the everyday activities of the castle. No one outside the tower realized it was Harry to constantly trip Draco Malfoy over rugs, make Snape's door suddenly harder for him to bang open, and surreptitiously slide Ginny Weasley and Colin Creevey further down the Gryffindor table from him.

Harry Potter could be extremely subtle in his revenge, and his house knew that sometimes accidents around Harry weren't accidents at all.

Soon the rest of the Order of the Phoenix would realize this too, after all that Dumbledore had put him through this summer. Of course, in Harry's mind, it also fell on the members of the order who had mindlessly followed their esteemed leader and left a traumatized teen locked in his room.

Harry reached out to the sentient magic of Grimmauld Place, letting his magic intertwine with the house and felt what seemed like a sigh of contentment, of _home_ sank through to his core. The house felt as though it had been abandoned and left to its own devices for years. The magic of the house hadn't gone into hibernation, but had been growing and infusing with more and more objects within the house in that time. That meant that Harry now had control over the entire house. From the bannisters and staircases to the stoves and cobwebs on the ceiling- the entire house was his to command.

Harry smirked.


	2. House gets a Clue

_Wow what a response! Definitely wasn't expecting that at all, but considering how I enjoy this concept a lot, I shall do my best to keep up with it. That being said, I am not planning on dragging this out into a very long, convoluted plotline._

 _Anyways, I am not J.K Rowling, and I own absolutely nothing, Jon Snow._

* * *

It began subtly. These sorts of things always did.

Rugs stayed straightened and even with the wood work, lights seemed to brighten the dreary house more than an ordinary lightbulb should, and there was a lovely scent of lavender wafting through the second floor at all hours.

Things then got more obvious, although the Order simply was too oblivious to notice the telling discrepancies that followed Harry's arrival. If those people's teas got cold much faster than was natural, well, they had nothing to blame but their own forgetfulness.

The Hogwarts students of the house took to cleaning with a fervor that frankly shocked Molly Weasley. From the moment they finished breakfast and _washed their own dishes too_ , they disappeared up into a chosen room of the day and stripped every single year of abandonment and wear and tear from the house walls. A weight seemed to be lifted off of the house during this time, at least to the Gryffindors.

For the Order members, suddenly their rooms seemed darker and more closed in, and the fire seemed dim and forlorn. If they looked at the front door and it suddenly felt like the most welcoming thing in the house, they would shake their heads and mumble about "the cause". There was a lot of head shaking in the house from Mundungus Fletcher, and shortly after, his stolen cauldrons vanished right before his eyes. He did not bring any more unsavory goods to the house after that.

Sirius on the other hand, was feeling more invigorated than he had in years. He sang along with the radio after dinner, and if the chandelier seemed to sparkle like a disco light with his laughter, everyone wrote it off to accidental magic. After all, the poor man had finally gotten his rightful freedom. Little did they realize, that as Head of House Black, Sirius was synchronized with the feelings of the Ancestral House of Black, which was currently getting stripped of the greasy black magic that had brought it down for the past few generations.

And Harry was there with him.

Suddenly Sirius' life was on the upswing and he made sure Harry knew that his new feelings of youth and vitality were due to the fact that Harry was now living with him, just as he had wanted back in third year. The thought immediately brought down Sirius' mood. Harry _should_ by all rights be living with him right now, instead of being forced to live with an aunt who had despised his mother. Sirius had had a childhood that had shaped him into the bitter man that he was… Harry should never have been placed in a similar situation while Sirius was still living.

His mind set, Sirius set upon a path to the library, something rarely done since his initial homecoming. The Grimmauld library was lauded as holding some of the darkest spells imaginable to any witch or wizard, along with holding the key to the wizarding world- books filled with every law every put into place.

If the books happened to have been restored and placed in convenient alphabetical order closest to the most comfortable chair in the library… well, that was just a coincidence.

* * *

An entire week went by before the more sentient inhabitants of house began to make their intentions known. Wallpaper depictions began to move again, sans the decapitations depicted in the main foyer. The plants that had long since overgrown the beaten path to the door seemed to want to move into charming designs clear of the pathway. And one rare cloudless day, the dour paintings decorating the walls of the house began to smile. The House Magic had returned to Grimmauld Place. It was not long until they were greeting each other across the hallways, yelling tips and advice to the Hogwarts students as they walked by, and sneering in disgust when any original member walked by. It was glaringly obvious to the children what was going on, yet only a prickle in the subconsciousness of the rest of the household. Change was in the faintly lavender scented air.

"Child, would you mind moving aside the curtains that obscure my sight?" Ginny jumped a solid foot in the air before her eyes widened and her head turned towards the dreaded curtains. She had been coming down to breakfast when her thoughts had been interrupted by the unusual, _polite_ request.

"Child?", was the plaintive repetition.

"Oh! Of course, Madame."

Ginny moved to open the curtains, well-aware that the change of heart from the other paintings in the house had probably also reached out to the normally screeching portrait.

A frantic shout stopped her.

"Ginny! Have you not lived here the past couple of weeks? Lady Black is bonkers!" Nymphadora Tonks hurried over to the bannister and stared up at Ginny. Ginny smiled innocently down at the auror before gently sweeping aside the curtains.

"Hello, Lady Black, how are you doing this morning?"

An astonishing change had overcome Lady Walburga Black. Her dour face was still the picture of regality, without the disgusted sneer that normally overcame her handsome features. By no means could she be considered comely or beautiful, but her features still presented themselves handsomely on the face of her son. Her sharp grey eyes fell on Ginny.

"I thank you for allowing me to connect with the house again. I also apologize for my most unseemly behavior, I should not think that in recent enlightenments that you will hold it against me?" The statement ended in a questioning tone, yet it was obvious that the Lady Black expected her audience to know the reasoning behind her actions and that forgiveness was nigh. Tonks was utterly lost.

Ginny nodded in her most graceful manner possible, before replying, "Yes, Lady, I do not hold it against you in the slightest." Ginny then excused herself and slowly descended the rest of the steps before running quickly out of sight of the portrait. She did not want to miss out on the sausage.

"Young lady, that is an extremely obscene shade of purple that rests upon your head." The statement drew Tonks out of her stupor. Narrowing her grey eyes at the portrait, Tonks scrunched up her nose before her hair lengthened to her shoulders and turned a glaring shade of pink. That ought to give the screeching crone something to yell about.

"Tonks, I really liked the purple, why the sudden change?" Harry was suddenly at her side, making her yelp a little at the unexpected company on the first stair.

"Good morning, little Heir." Harry turned to the Dowager Lady Black and inclined his head with a smile.

"Good morning. I see that what has weighed you down so much has been lifted?" At her nod, Harry's smile widened, and he gestured to Tonks.

"Lady Black, I would like you to meet your grand-niece, Nymphadora." Tonks paled, knowing that her family had been disowned years ago, and she braced herself for the onslaught of harsh words. The painting's satisfied smile shocked her.

"Well, I am relieved that the Family Magic has finally shown itself once more, even if it is from a… distant relation." One could not fault Walburga for not being able to be rid of all her disdain, but stripping the greasy magic did not strip them of their ideals. Harry thanked the Lady most respectfully, then excused himself and Tonks, dragging the young woman by the arm to the breakfast table. The soft, hopeful look on Tonks; face remained there all day.

* * *

The rest of the Order was not spared from the disdain characterized by the stuffy painting. Although the children of the house were "well-mannered, if a bit rowdy, young adults", every member of the Order who milled about the house was met with scathing, if well-meaning advice about their appearance, traditions, accents, and posture. If those who had their posture criticized suddenly found their chairs to be a bit more rigid and a slight chill whenever they slouched in their seats, they wrote it off as a subconscious attempt to better themselves. The Lady of the House was beginning to be seen as the insufferable old lady who was "harmless, yet incredible annoying".

The Order of The Phoenix had been suitably cowed at the scolding they received from Walburga Black for leaving an "innocent, loving, quaint little half-blood all by himself with ghastly plebeians". After all, they were getting yelled at by a dead woman in a painting. Didn't that go to show exactly how they had gone wrong this summer. What was next, the spoons hissing at them?

* * *

Molly ignored the strange nature of the house with practiced obliviousness, smoothed out by her years of pretending that she did not in fact notice the smell of Ron's room, or that strange substance dripping from the ceiling. She did not want to know and that was that.

The House and Molly began to have an understanding- Molly would not badger her children to stop cleaning and do their homework, _Great Merlin_ , and the House would stop moving all of the utensils to ridiculous locations.

It was when Molly pulled a ladle from the horrendous troll umbrella stand that Molly knew she had a new adversary. However, she was under the impression that it was Kreacher who was diabolically moving _her_ kitchen tools around, so she made sure to be properly respectful to the crotchety old house elf, who secretly began to clean things in order to please "that nice orange-haired blood traitor". For Kreacher, that was the nearest thing to a compliment he had given in years.

It was the sight of Molly coaxing Kreacher to take a cleaner, much nicer dish towel that drove Sirius into smothered laughter in the doorway of the kitchen.

"Sirius Black! You stop that laughing right now and tell Kreacher I need to wash his dish towel!" Molly's face matched her hair.

Sirius simply laughed harder, shoulders shaking.

Kreacher growled before snatching the towel and moving to his closet.

Molly beamed. "Leave the other one with the wash, please!" It was concerning how much the woman had changed with the newfound safety of her kitchen utensils.

Sirius' laughter gradually faded out as he walked around the wooden table and grabbed a cup of coffee from the stove. It was perfectly hot, and the smell of it seemed to welcome him. He sank into the far too comfortable wood of the head chair and smiled. Life was really turning up for Sirius. Sirius looked around at the shabby kitchen sadly. For a house that made him so feel so welcome now, it still matched the appearance from his childhood, and was still a dreary place, as much as it tried not to be.

Molly sat at the other end of the table, sipping at her morning tea before the rest of the house all came trampling in. She noticed Sirius looking at her with a speculative look on his sharp features.

"Molly," Sirius began, "I would like your help in making this place a home suitable for Harry and I to live in, if you're willing to help me?"

Molly put her cup down a little more strongly than necessary, tilting her head as she scrutinized the man whose house she had been living in for about a month. In that time, his selfishness and haughty nature had diminished somewhat, leaving only a genuinely loving man who she could see loved his godson dearly.

She sighed a little, straightening her shoulders and thanking the rigidity of the chair for her newfound posture, before nodding at Sirius.

"This will be a home to be proud of, Sirius." She smiled kindly at the man trying to do right by his godson who deserved the world.

Little did they know that he had already started on making the house a home, with a fortress lurking beneath the newly gleaming floors.

* * *

The rest of the house saw the fortress about two weeks into the brightening up of Grimmauld Place. That was the day that Dumbledore visited the Black House. As he walked through the pleasant looking garden, he was assaulted with a disturbing scent of decay and old wood. The smell did not match the newly-trimmed appearance of the garden whatsoever. Dumbledore was an old man, and as much as he liked to be quoted saying "If all else goes, follow the nose!" his sense of smell did not weigh heavily on his mind as he strolled through the flowers.

 _Molly has truly outdone herself this time,_ he smiled at the curling rosebush, which shrunk back, _what a wonderful breeze_ , and Albus Dumbledore ascended the steps of the dreary house before reaching to let himself in. The doorknob was strangely warm and seemed to make a small shrieking noise before refusing to turn with his wrist. The headmaster frowned, before reaching up to grasp a far too ostentatious knocker and heavily pounding the door with it.

 _That's strange, I am the holder of the wards of this house._ Dumbledore was mistaken.

The wards of the house always rested with the Head of the House, no matter their incarceration or otherwise. As long as the Head was of sound mind, the House answered to him. Dumbledore's Fidelius Charm held no say in the vast web of wards that had been activated for generations.

Dumbledore also failed to notice that his aggressive knocking on the door had borne no sound, and no footsteps signaled the approach to let him in. He was well and truly on the outside looking in. And on top of that, a light drizzle had begun only in the courtyard, making his waiting just the smallest bit more miserable than it had been before.

And still nobody answered his knock. Dumbledore hunched on the stoop, trying his hardest to remain genial and calm in the smell of decay, the dampness beginning to gather on his shoulders, and the feeling of being ignored. It was a small taste of what Harry had gone through the entire summer, although Dumbledore would not begin to draw that correlation for a disappointingly long time.

* * *

 _Well that was a fun start, at least for me. A little bit of a cliffhanger, but time does age wine well, you know._

 _Do care to leave me with some reviews if you enjoyed this. I do so love reviews._

 _More house renovating and Dumbledore getting what he deserves next time, along with a small boot from his holy pedestal with a truly Black vengeance. Until then!_


End file.
